The Gash
by Lilya
Summary: In a foreign village, Naruto looks at the nightly sky. And he tries to find an answer to his questions...


Title: The gash

Author: Lilya

Genre: Angst

Summary: In a foreign village, Naruto looks at the nightly skies and remembers. And he keeps on looking for an answer.

Main Characters: Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke Uchiha.

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: all the characters belong to Kishimoto Masashi. The lyrics are taken from "The Ballad of Jamie Bee" but I don't know who owns it.

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**THE GASH  
**

_You pull your own weight or else it pulls you_

_It gets harder the longer that you run_

The boy wipes the perspiration off his brow and critically inspects the damages he caused to the rock in front of him.

"It's enough for tonight…" he murmurs though there's no one here to hear him. His sensei gave up on persuading him to stop long ago.

Jiraiya understands his game perfectly, and yet he lets him play it. They both know Naruto is trapped. Sooner or later, his sensei will corner him and give him that speech Naruto doesn't want to listen to, doesn't want to hear. Maybe he's afraid that if he hears it too much, in the end he will believe it.

But Naruto doesn't want to. He can't believe it. Maybe he's really fighting for a lost cause, but he won't give it up.

Sitting down on a different rock, the boy runs his hands through his blonde hair and raises his gaze on the starry sky above. The stars have always fascinated him, even when he was a child. Back then he used to think that they really held the answers to every question.

He really wishes they could answer, even if it was only to a single question…he knows what he would ask them. But, maybe, neither them could answer him.

Deep down he knows it's just imagination, but he still enjoys raising his head toward the sky at night, when all those wonderful lights shine down on him.

Somewhere, beneath the same sky, there's the cause of his grief. They both walk beneath the same stars and this makes him feel better, somehow.

_You pull your own weight or else it pulls you_

_It gets harder the older that you've grown_

Who knows how much time will pass before they meet again – because it's bound to happen sooner or later.

Who knows if the weight on his heart will leave by then.

Everything is getting harder, even keeping up the mask he has always worn, that mask that by now fits him like a second skin.

Keeping on smiling is not easy when there's a gash in your soul.

Whatever they might say, it won't erase his guilt, his remorse for his failure.

The young ninja bites down on his lower lip and closes his eyes, trying to conjure in front of his eyes the picture of his teammate – not as he was the last time he saw him, but as he used to be long ago, before those cursed exams.

That image hurts him terribly, it rends his heart, but he doesn't want to forget it.

Naruto thinks about it every time he can, so the passing of time will not erase it from his memory.

He doesn't need to think about the rest: there's the gash in his soul that throbs and bleeds and hurts endlessly in every waking hour.

Jiraiya tells him that it will go away. That's the point, exactly: Naruto doesn't want it to go away. Even if it hurts, Naruto doesn't want to give up. He's not ready to give up on Sasuke.

Maybe he never will, or so he hopes.

_You pull your own weight or else it pulls you_

_It gets harder the older that you've grown_

Time is what he fears the most. He fears that, with time, the images he holds close to his heart will fade away, that with time he might get used to live with that gash that can't be mended.

Tonight Naruto gazes at the stars and before he starts remembering, before he starts looking for an answer, he wonders how long it took Jiraiya-sensei to give up on Orochimaru.

Naruto bites on his lip again and stubbornly swears that he won't do it, he won't give up on Sasuke.

He can't allow himself to, after all the things that happened.

And it doesn't matter how many times they say that it wasn't his fault, that the young Uchiha was already irrecoverable. Naruto does not believe it, none of it.

If only he had found the right words…

If only he had fought harder…

_Now there's headlight heading from Ohio_

_And there's teardrops saltier than rain_

_There's taillights to tell a tale still tender_

_And a cold wind blowing through the night_

_There's a cold wind blowing through the night._

Tomorrow they will leave this place as well and there will be new roads, new villages and new people. Maybe there will also be the usual lecture from his sensei. But the weight on his shoulders remains and so does the gash on his soul.

Naruto stays out stargazing and remembers all the things that happened between him and his rival before everything changed, looking for answer to the questions that burn inside of him and follow him through his days. And now that he's patiently reconstructing all his moves, his actions and his words in their last months, these questions burns hotter and the void the gash left behind feels even emptier.

When did that gash between the two of them appear?

When did Sasuke give up on fighting?

_They said Jamie's heart don't break but I know it did._

_They said Jamie's heart don't break but I know it did._

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